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Lot Essay
The present work is a highly finished early watercolour executed collaboratively by those masters of the medium: Joseph Mallord William Turner, and Thomas Girtin. Between 1794 and 1797, during the winter months, the two young artists spent their Friday evening’s at the Adelphi home of the art collector Dr Thomas Monro (1759-1833), physician to the King, and himself an amateur draughtsman. The pair copied drawings by John Robert Cozens (1752-1797), Edward Dayes (1763-1804) and others. As the two artists later recalled, Girtin generally ‘drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’. The diarist Joseph Farington (1747-1821) notes that Turner worked for Munro in exchange for ‘half a crown and a plate of oysters’, whilst ‘Girtin did not say what he had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).
Though in some instances the source material for Turner and Girtin's work is now lost, in this case, the present composition relates to a sketch executed by Cozens during his trip to the continent in the autumn of 1783, fig.1 (View of Isola Borromea, Lake Maggiore, The Whitworth, Manchester, inv. D.1975.9.28). However, it would have been unlikely that pupils of the Monro School would have been able to study Cozens sketchbooks, which belonged to his patron, William Beckford (1760-1844). Instead, it is more likely that they studied tracings (which had also been executed by Cozens) of these on-the-spot sketches. A number of the tracings are in an album assembled by the artist and collector Sir George Beaumont (1753-1827), which is now at the Yale Centre for British Art. The view of Isola Borromea, Lake Maggiore is not featured in any of the known tracings, but it is likely that this method was indeed the way that the present drawing was realised by the two young artists.
The work was previously attributed to Turner alone when it was sold at Monro’s posthumous sale in 1833, and maintained that attribution when it last appeared on the market at Sotheby's in 1999 but the pencil work is typical of Girtin, particularly in the island and the vegetation.
Though in some instances the source material for Turner and Girtin's work is now lost, in this case, the present composition relates to a sketch executed by Cozens during his trip to the continent in the autumn of 1783, fig.1 (View of Isola Borromea, Lake Maggiore, The Whitworth, Manchester, inv. D.1975.9.28). However, it would have been unlikely that pupils of the Monro School would have been able to study Cozens sketchbooks, which belonged to his patron, William Beckford (1760-1844). Instead, it is more likely that they studied tracings (which had also been executed by Cozens) of these on-the-spot sketches. A number of the tracings are in an album assembled by the artist and collector Sir George Beaumont (1753-1827), which is now at the Yale Centre for British Art. The view of Isola Borromea, Lake Maggiore is not featured in any of the known tracings, but it is likely that this method was indeed the way that the present drawing was realised by the two young artists.
The work was previously attributed to Turner alone when it was sold at Monro’s posthumous sale in 1833, and maintained that attribution when it last appeared on the market at Sotheby's in 1999 but the pencil work is typical of Girtin, particularly in the island and the vegetation.